National grocer moving into Garden Oaks Shopping Center

There are more, big changes afoot at the Garden Oaks Shopping Center on North Shepherd. Yoga Collective, which occupies the space at the end of the complex at 3938-D North Shepherd, sent out an e-mail to clients which said they had been informed by the property management company that they were early terminating Yoga Collective’s lease.

“We would need to vacate our space in order to accommodate a new, larger tenant,” wrote Rhia Robinson.

Now, Danny Morales with Hartman Management – no relation to the real estate firm Hartman & Associates – says that the new tenant will be German supermarket chain ALDI who already has more than 25 stores in the Houston area.

ALDI, a national discount supermarket chain, has signed a ground lease for 17,000 square feet at the northern end cap. They will build their own structure which will sit on Yoga Collective’s vacated space and on the vacant space next to that. Blast Fitness, on the other side of the currently vacant space, says they are staying.

ALDI is a discount supermarket chain which describes its “unique style” on their website. They keep grocery carts in one place. Customers put a quarter in the cart, shop and then return the cart to get the quarter back. ALDI says that helps to keep prices low so they don’t have to retrieve carts. Customers bring bags or buy reusable ones at checkout. Costs savings such as these translate into 50 percent savings to the customer, according to the retailer.

Yoga Collective will have their last classes on June 4. Photo by Betsy Denson

The food is made up of ALDI brands which are touted as being made “of the same, or even higher, quality than national brands.” They sell the “weekly must-haves,” so inventory is not nearly as high as at other stores.

And that’s not the only new activity going on at the Garden Oaks center. A 4,945 square foot retail floater building is 20 percent complete which would have room for two or three more additional tenants in the complex. Morales says they are close to signing a lease with a few other larger tenants for the center.

In its online marketing, Hartman lists the total square footage for the neighborhood center – not including the new addition – as 95,000 square feet. Another plus, according to Hartman, is that the center is bordered by two signalized intersections, Garden Oaks Blvd on the North and W. 38th St. on the South.

Last September, Morales told The Leader that the company was not concerned about the current vacancies as they have plans to remodel the entire center and expand the tenant mix.

“We want to put businesses in there that people want and need,” said Morales.

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Aldi is an excellent store with great prices. It is nice to see Kroger get a run for it’s money. As far as yoga saving lives, give me a break! You can swing a dead cat and hit a yoga studio in this city. Get over yourselves.

Considering the fact that Aldi has 25 stores in the Houston area, it doesn’t seem that Aldi is what people need more of. Yoga however can save lives. I think in this instance the priority was purely financial and not at all about what the people need.